Something like this:

Santorumblog observes: “Rick Santorum debated Green Party candidate for Senate Carl Romanelli today.  Some might say that an empty chair ably stood in for Democrat Bob Casey.”

White House press secretary Tony Snow’s reaction to the Chris Wallace Fox News Sunday interview of Bill Clinton (reported by Fox News):  “You decide.”

Bill Clinton made this puzzling assertion during his sulky interview with Fox News Sunday’s Chris Wallace.

My Republican secretary of defense — and I think I’m the only president since World War II to have a secretary of defense of the opposite party

Unclear how that’s relevant, but as a matter of political trivia, Clinton is correct.  in 1940 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt named Republican Henry Stimson Secretary of War, joining the Republican Frank Knox as Secretary of the Navy.

Bill Clinton says this to Fox News’s Chris Wallace about U.S. troops leaving Somalia after Black Hawk down in 1993: “Bin Laden may have said it — but it would have shown the weakness if we left right away. But he wasn’t involved in that, that’s just a bunch of bull.”
Bunch of bull.  Sounds familiar.  Where have we heard Clinton run with the bulls before?

How about here:

• “They knew for a long time there was nothing to Whitewater. They knew it was a bunch of bull.” (Jim Lehrer, Jan. 26, 2000).
• “The American people know that all the old cliches—tax and spend, soft on crime, weak on welfare—that it’s all a bunch of bull.”  (New Hampshire Democratic speech, Feb. 17th, 1996)
• He has said publicly that Hale’s story is “a bunch of bull” fabricated to help him engineer a plea bargain with Kenneth Starr. (Washington Post, April 3, 1996)
• “They say, aw, it doesn’t matter who wins, all the politicians—you’ve heard all that stuff. I’m telling you it’s a bunch of bull.” (United Jewish Appeal speech, March 17, 1996)
• He had blunt words for Republican ads claiming Gore’s proposal to add a prescription drug proposal to Medicare would force senior citizens into a into a “government-run HMO.”  “Folks, it’s a bunch of bull,” Clinton said.  (CNN, Oct. 4, 2000)

Earlier this month, Extreme Mortman first reported that Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales followed Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz on Washington Post radio station WTWP (topic: Katie Couric) by beginning this way:

Howie just put me to sleep so it’s a little hard for me to perk up and give my impressions. I don’t know why Howie has to weigh in on these things when I’m the TV critic. But fine. I’d like to weigh in on everything — even the recipes, the cooking segments.

In its October issue, Washingtonian magazine gets Kurtz’ response:

Tom Shales skewers people for a living. I suppose I’m honored to have made the list.

To which Shales again reacts: “Howie’s so eager to be on the air, I expected him to start doing recipes.”

Sounds like Shales is in reruns, and none too eager to let this drop.

Opening sentence of David Greenberg’s review of the new Frank Rich book “The Greatest Story Ever Sold,” from Sunday’s Washington Post Book World:

Throughout George W. Bush’s presidency, no columnist has been more perceptive than Frank Rich of the New York Times.

Forgive me if, after that exquisite example of big media elitism, I don’t have the stomach to finish the review, let alone buy the book.

Wall Street Journal:

Five months into his job at the White House, Tony Snow is using his wardrobe to communicate that he isn’t the stereotypical press secretary, mixing things up with colors that often seem to reflect the administration’s mood.

Ashton Kutcher visiting Washington, quoted in Sunday’s Washington Post:

“I’m really uncomfortable being in the same city as George Bush. Is he in town right now?”

As a University of Maryland grad who struggled to get good grades — actually, struggled to find the classroom and the bookstore (I got a B in Plato’s Republic without ever reading it) — I have particular delight in Nick Gillespie’s interview at Reasononline.com with Long Tail author and Wired editor Chris Anderson.  We learn:

“He proceeded to flunk out of the University of Maryland—”with a 0.0 G.P.A.”

It didn’t get that bad for me — but barely.  After I graduated I finally out why I did so poorly in school.  Turns out I’d been highlighting my books with black magic marker.  You know, some people graduate summa cum laude.  I graduated thank the laude.

Here’s my University of Maryland diploma:

Beltway Blogroll points this out:

“We’re looking at where we can get the biggest bang for the buck.”
– Transportation Security Administration chief Kip Hawley, explaining why the federal government may spend less money on explosive-detection devices and more money on X-rays at airports.

That’s right, the same Kip Hawley whom a month ago, after the London airplane terror plot was uncovered, said this:

Transportation Security Administration Assistant Secretary Kip Hawley: “Enjoy Your trip.”

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff: “It does seem a little odd maybe to hear somebody to say, enjoy your trip, but the whole point of this exercise is to continue to maintain the level of safety and security in air travel in this country that we have had since September 11.”